In the third year of trying to win over Arthur Sterling, the system suddenly told me it had made a mistake.
It wasn’t that it got the target wrong. It got the player wrong.
“I misheard. The player is supposed to be Chloe, not Zoe. Hehehe. Chloe will be at the class reunion tomorrow. Zoe, you don’t need to try to win Arthur over anymore. Just tell Chloe to come.”
I was silent for a moment, then softly said, “Okay.”
This was for the best.
Arthur had never liked me anyway. This undefined, nameless relationship should have ended a long time ago, the moment the system told me it had chosen the wrong person.
I had just finished knitting Arthur’s scarf. It was supposed to be my birthday present for him.
On my phone, the message I had just sent was still visible.
Arthur, Arthur. Guess what I got you for—
The message sank like a stone into the ocean, just like always.
Arthur never replied to my messages right away.
The system chattered beside me.
“Oh man, look at this mess. Your name and Chloe’s sound so similar. I didn’t look closely and accidentally bound myself to you. Good thing you didn’t manage to win him over in three years. Otherwise, if you had succeeded and then I found out I messed up, my job would be gone. My bad, my bad. I should have realized it when you couldn’t win him over after so long. I mean, Chloe’s profile says she’s smart and beautiful. How could anyone not like her?”
It suddenly went quiet, then laughed awkwardly.
“I don’t mean you’re not good. Haha. It’s just that our love facilitation system specifically chooses couples who already have mutual feelings and unresolved ambiguity. This really was a big mistake.”
“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.”
I finally understood why Arthur and I had clearly done everything couples do, yet he absolutely refused to publicly acknowledge me as his girlfriend.
Why, no matter how hard I tried, I could never make him like me.
Why didn’t I realize it three years ago?
Arthur was allergic to stupidity. How could a guy like him ever like an idiot like me?
I planned to go to Arthur’s house to pack up all my things. After all, Chloe was coming tomorrow. I didn’t want to be caught between the handsome guy and the beautiful girl, playing the pathetic clown begging for love.
But I didn’t expect Chloe to have already contacted Arthur in advance.
Through the fence, I saw Arthur sitting on his balcony, painting. His phone was on speaker, and Chloe’s cheerful voice came through.
“So, are you looking forward to seeing me tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Arthur dragged out the word. “Old classmates. I’m pretty looking forward to it.”
“So you’re not looking forward to seeing me specifically? And here I even prepared a birthday present for you. Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“What is it?”
“Ta-da. It’s a super hard math problem. If you can solve it, I’ll tell you a secret. Your early birthday present has been sent. Please bring the answer to the class reunion tomorrow. Offer expires soon, Mr. Genius.”
I heard Arthur chuckle softly. He put down his paintbrush and picked up his phone.
“Interesting.”
Arthur never answered my calls while he was painting. Even though I had expected it, seeing it still made my eyes sting pathetically.
I turned to leave.
My phone suddenly buzzed. It was Arthur.
He had finally replied to my message, probably just out of convenience.
There was only one word.
Boring.
I was definitely a boring person.
That was why the only birthday present I could think of was an unoriginal scarf. In Arthur’s words, it was probably something like: Because you don’t have a brain, you can only offer cheap manual labor.
I couldn’t be like Chloe, designing a super hard math problem to discuss with Arthur. I wouldn’t even be able to solve a problem of that difficulty.
I couldn’t get my things today.
I walked home alone.
I had had a crush on Arthur since high school.
Or rather, I was just one of the many girls who had a crush on Arthur.
We were neighbors, but standing next to the radiant Arthur, no one noticed plain, invisible Zoe.
The only thing that made me different from the rest was that I used my neighborly advantage to deliver love letters to him for other girls.
Every time Arthur took a letter, he would say, “Only good for running errands. You’re so dumb.”
Dumb.
That was the evaluation he gave me from childhood to adulthood.
But he didn’t know.
I just wanted an excuse to say a few more words to him.
I never thought this secret crush would ever see the light of day until the summer before my senior year, when a system found me.
It said it was a love facilitation system, choosing men and women who already had mutual feelings to start a conquest. The standard for a successful conquest was officially declaring yourselves boyfriend and girlfriend.
“Our system’s main goal is to let love change the world. After a successful conquest, you’ll also receive a generous cash bonus.”
But I didn’t hear anything after that.
I only heard six words: already had mutual feelings.
So Arthur actually liked me a little too.
My heart leaped with a joy I had never felt before.
So after finding out he had gotten injured playing basketball, I gathered my courage and knocked on his door.
“Take care of me.”
Hearing my intention, he leaned against the doorframe, smirking through half-lidded eyes.
“Offering help for no reason? What do you want?”
I looked up at him.
“You…”
Facing him, I couldn’t lie.
I whispered, “I want you.”
He burst out laughing.
“You’re such an idiot.”
But he opened the door.
Summer was long.
Every day, I braved the scorching sun to run from Unit 4 to Unit 1. The AC had broken, and his leg was injured, so he couldn’t move around well. I climbed the ladder to check it out. While he held it steady, I lost my balance and fell into his arms, and we rolled onto the floor together.
It was summer, so we were dressed lightly. I felt his body react and pushed him away, blushing.
But he grabbed both my wrists and pinned them above my head.
“Didn’t you want me? Why are you backing down now?”
He gave a half-smile. His eyes reflected my stunned face.
As our lips met, I heard his voice.
“If you want it, let’s try it.”
That try lasted for three years.
Only after trying for three years, we still weren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend.
During that time, it wasn’t like I never asked to make it official.
“Does it matter whether we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend? You wanted me, and you got me. Isn’t that enough?”
My brain wasn’t as sharp as his. I couldn’t navigate the twists and turns in his words.
“But I want to be your girlfriend.”
“I don’t like restrictive relationships right now,” he said. “Is the title of girlfriend really that important to you? Do we really need to fight over something so trivial?”
It is important, I wanted to say.
But I couldn’t out-argue him. It always made me look like I was making a big deal out of nothing.
Over time, I started brainwashing myself.
He does like me. The system wouldn’t make a mistake. He just doesn’t want to be tied down. Give it some more time, and we’ll eventually become a real couple.
But now the system had told me that this relationship was a mistake from the very beginning.
When I got home, I sat quietly for a few hours. Then I picked up my phone and sent Arthur a message.
Even though he might not care, I still wanted a clean end to what we started.
Let’s end this.
The next day, at the class reunion, I arrived early.
Arthur wasn’t there yet, but Chloe was.
As the class president, she was surrounded like a star at the center of the table.
“Oh wow. Little Glasses is here too.”
When there were students with similar names in a class, classmates often added prefixes to tell them apart. Like boy, girl, big, little, fat, skinny.
It was the same for Chloe and me, but the way we were differentiated was different from everyone else.
She was Chloe.
I was Little Glasses.
Whenever she was around, no one called me by my real name.
Chloe looked at me, a hint of interest floating in her eyes.
“Oh, stop. Don’t say that about Zoe. She doesn’t wear glasses anymore. Stop giving her nicknames,” she said with a grin.
But she was the one who had complained in high school that people couldn’t tell us apart and had given me that nickname in the first place.
“True. Without her glasses, Zoe is actually pretty cute,” a guy suddenly said.
“Yeah, our Little Glasses is a beauty now. So, Zoe, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Hey, Liam, Mason, weren’t you two asking me about grad school advisors earlier?” Chloe interrupted. “Let me tell you about it before the reunion officially starts.”
“Oh, right.”
“Hey, Little Glasses, come sit at our table,” another guy enthusiastically invited me.
“No need. Sorry, I’m—”
A cool voice sounded from behind me, and my breath hitched.
“Whoa. Arthur the genius finally made it. Come sit, sit.”
Our classmates enthusiastically swarmed him.
I silently moved to the side.
“Arthur, sit here.” Chloe smiled, pointing to the empty seat next to her.
Arthur cast a fleeting glance at me. “What’s everyone talking about? It’s so lively.”
“Just chatting. Oh, right, we were just saying how Little Glasses looks so pretty now that she took her glasses off,” the guy pointing at me said.
“Oh?”
Arthur casually tossed his bag onto the chair next to mine, his gaze sweeping over me as I stood there.
I didn’t look at him. Instead, the moment he sat down, I grabbed my bag and walked over to the farthest table.
Arthur raised an eyebrow, his expression unreadable.
As soon as I sat down, I heard his voice again.
“Her?”
He gave a short laugh, looking at the guy.
“When did you go blind?”